


It's Who We Are

by orphan_account



Category: Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist
Genre: Brothers, Demon Yukio, Demons, Post-Anime, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-10
Updated: 2016-05-10
Packaged: 2018-06-07 13:43:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6807361
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There is hardly a pair of twins more different than Yukio and Rin Okumura. Exactly 1000 words on why this isn't true.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Who We Are

**Author's Note:**

> Something I wrote before reading the manga. A bit of a character study.

Yukio rejects the demon side of him the moment he feels it, pounding to be let out and coaxing him to give in.

He knew from the day he first noticed the growing number of dark blotches on his skin that this day was bound to come. Unlike Rin’s awakening, his was slow and gradual, but no less frightening. The actual day occurred a week ago, when he was possessed by Satan, but he hasn’t… _felt_ like a demon since then. When it happened to Rin, it wasn’t so hard to ignore. But he doesn’t feel the pressing weight of Kurikara on his shoulders, doesn’t need to conceal a tail by tightly wrapping it against his body. He winces. Maybe he shouldn’t have been so hard on Rin after his powers awakened. He hadn’t really thought about what it was like. Now he knows, and he knows that Rin had it harder. What must it have felt like for Rin in those first days, thinking that his own brother hated him for something he couldn’t control?

Something in Yukio’s gut twists. He thinks it’s guilt at first. Then he realizes it’s just that hatred coming back again, biting him from the inside and trying to force its way up, spill out onto everyone else. No. He’ll keep it hidden this time. Now he only has himself to hate.

* * *

Rin accepts the demon side of himself as soon as it forces its way up like bile out of his throat.

It wasn’t pleasant. He doesn’t have pleasant memories about it. Nothing is pleasant about being a demon. Nothing is pleasant in general. But nothing is something he can’t change. He’s not about to go swallow that bile, only for it to come back up again and burn his throat worse than any flames every could. No, he’ll ride it out, but only because he has no other choice.

Rin Okumura is a fighter. He will never stop fighting. But some things, he knows, can’t be fought. So he rides it out, rides every fresh wave of guilt like a surfer riding in the center of a liquid tunnel, balanced perfectly and fearing the moment all that water comes and crashes down on him, suffocating him. He waits for the moment he coils his tail a little too tightly, a little too close to his throat, tempting himself to reach up a little farther and strangle the life out of himself when nobody else is looking. But he can’t, because he’s a fighter, and he’ll even fight himself if he has to. When there’s no one else left to fight, he’ll only have himself left to blame.

* * *

 Yukio avoids mirrors for a month straight after that day. He can’t bear to see himself the way he looks now.

Some selfish part of him, which is bigger than he’d like to admit, is happy he isn’t as outwardly demonic as his twin- though they do look more alike now than ever before. The sharp, clearly carnivorous teeth are hard to miss, and the ears are far too similar to an animal’s for Yukio’s comfort. There’s no way of avoiding the enhanced senses that come with either, can’t beat out the constant barrage of sight and sound and smell and even _taste_ \- can’t ignore it. And although he retains their mother’s rounded eyes, he has lost the curvature of her ears to the points of their other heritage. However, his own ears and- he lurches- _fangs_ are far more blunted than Rin’s, and he’s beyond glad he doesn’t have a tail either.

Still. He can’t look at himself in a mirror without that strike of fear, the tower-bell clang of terror that thinks he looks too much like a demon. The day he does look into the bathroom mirror is the day he walks in with a nail file and spends an hour crying as he tries to grind his canine teeth down into their old set, and he walks out with a misshapen smile and bleeding gums.

* * *

Rin avoids mirrors for as long as he can. He doesn’t ever want to be faced with that creature he saw on that first day.

But he can’t avoid mirrors forever- he still has to go to the bathroom, and his face is far from the only part of him that’s changed, though it _is_ the part he can ignore (or try to). He can only imagine what it’s like for everyone who has to look at him on a daily basis. Rin knows it’s bad for Yukio; he sees it in how his younger brother winces every time he smiles, how his fingers twitch toward the pistols hidden under layers of clothing, how he can’t stand to be in the same room alone with Rin for more than a minute without being uncomfortable. Now his appearance is not just a reminder to himself of Fujimoto’s death, but a reminder to everyone else as well.

For the most part, Rin is glad Yukio never got the same powers he did. Sometimes it’s out of jealousy- he’s better at everything else, Rin can finally be _better_ than him for once in his life- and sometimes it’s out of genuine remorse for the shit everyone has to go through because of him. Sometimes though, he wishes Yukio had this power too, so he could say _here, see how you like it! I never wanted this!_

* * *

 

There is hardly a pair of twins more different than Yukio and Rin Okumura. When they feel the same way on something, it’s for different reasons. Where one fights, the other waits, but both are predators. They might disagree on everything most of the time, but the thing is, when it counts, they get over it. And when the Okumura twins _do_ team up, they are very, very powerful and very, very dangerous. More often than not the results are destructive, and very rarely are they pretty.

Sometimes it’s better that they disagree.


End file.
